Coral
Gables, FL – Today President delivered a speech at the University of Miami
laying out his Administration’s energy policies.

In response, Michael
Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, issued the following statement:

“The
Sierra Club is encouraged by the President’s continued commitment in his speech
today to double down on clean energy sources like wind, solar and energy
efficiency for economic growth and job creation. We applaud the President’s
goals for ramping up new American manufacturing, new skills and education for
American workers and new sources of American-made energy – there is no better
way to fulfill those goals than with a clean energy economy.

“As
the President said, rising gas prices are a painful reminder of why we need to
move beyond oil. We will not drill our
way out of this perennial problem. We need
to move beyond dirty fossil fuels and keep fragile, treasured places like the Polar
Bear Seas in the Arctic out of polluters’ reach.

“The President’s historic fuel economy and pollution standards will put better, more fuel efficient cars on the
road. These standards are the biggest single step we can take to break our dangerous
addiction to oil and they will
save Americans billions at the pump.

“We
urge the President to deliver our cleanest, quickest and cheapest options
first, and resist falling back on more expensive and dangerous new nuclear
power and fracked natural gas. As it stands, the Sierra Club has no
confidence in the secretive and toxic practices of natural gas fracking, nor do
we think that new nuclear has any role to play in America’s clean energy
future. The more we leverage cheap energy efficiency, the fewer new power
plants and fracking wells we will need.”